Director, Avionics

The role

The Director of Avionics leads the technical and strategic direction of spacecraft electrical systems. This person manages the Avionics engineering team and owns the architecture, development, and delivery of flight electronics across existing and new product lines.

What you will do

• Lead, mentor, and grow the Avionics Engineering team.
• Define and execute the long-term technical strategy, architecture, and engineering roadmap.
• Own organizational planning, hiring strategy, and resource allocation.
• Lead architecture, design, development, verification, and delivery of flight electronics.
• Remain hands-on in hardware development and critical design decisions.
• Drive system-level design trades for performance, reliability, cost, and manufacturability.
• Guide hardware development from concept through qualification, flight, and production.
• Establish engineering standards, development practices, and verification strategies.
• Lead technical design reviews and own avionics reliability for harsh environments.
• Partner with cross-functional teams to ensure clean spacecraft integration.

Required qualifications

• Must be eligible to access ITAR-controlled technical data: U.S. citizen, lawful permanent resident, or otherwise a protected individual under ITAR / 8 U.S.C. 1324b(a)(3).
• Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related technical field.
• 8+ years of professional experience in avionics, electrical hardware, embedded electronics, or high-reliability hardware development.
• 5+ years of direct, hands-on hardware engineering experience.
• Deep technical expertise in at least one core avionics hardware discipline.
• Proven people-management experience.
• Ability to evaluate complex engineering decisions and guide architectural tradeoffs.
• Experience defining technical strategy and aligning execution with organizational objectives.
• Strong understanding of hardware development from design through delivery.
• Experience delivering complex electrical hardware in spacecraft, aerospace, or similarly demanding high-reliability environments.
• Strong technical judgment, cross-functional leadership, communication, and organizational skills.

Nice to have

• Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, or a related field.
• Experience leading avionics or electrical hardware development across multiple spacecraft programs or product lines.
• Direct technical ownership of flight computers, onboard computing hardware, power electronics, or other flight-critical spacecraft electrical systems.
• Experience scaling hardware from prototype or initial flight designs into repeatable, high-rate production.
• Experience building or scaling engineering organizations, developing technical leaders, and implementing processes to support growth.
• Experience designing electronics for harsh environments, including radiation, thermal, vibration, and EMI/EMC considerations.
• Familiarity with space EEE-parts selection, radiation-hardness assurance (RHA), and derating/reliability analysis for flight electronics.
• Experience with fault-tolerant, redundant, and high-reliability avionics architectures.
• Experience defining technical roadmaps and introducing new technologies across multiple programs.
• Experience in a fast-paced, vertically integrated, or startup engineering environment.

Benefits

• Equity in Apex
• 100% company-paid medical, dental, and vision for you and your dependents
• $100k life insurance at no cost
• Starting at 15 days vacation, growing to 20+ days annually
• 10 paid holidays
• 100% match on first 3% and 50% on next 2% of 401(k)
• 8 weeks paid parental leave
• Childcare reimbursement up to $350/day for work-related travel
• Daily catered lunch and unlimited snacks
• Monthly office socials, pickleball tournaments, run club, and gatherings
• Dream desk setup

Before you apply

• Must be ITAR-eligible (U.S. person)

About the company

Apex manufactures satellite buses at scale using software, vertical integration, and hardware designed for manufacturing. The company aims to provide humankind access to the galaxy beyond our planet.